Professor of Law, General Faculty
Director, International Human Rights Law Clinic and Human Rights ProgramJ.D., Northeastern University School of Law, 1996B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz, 1980

Deena Hurwitz joined the faculty in 2003 as director of the Human Rights Program and the International Human Rights Law Clinic. From 2000-03, Hurwitz was the Robert M. Cover/Allard K. Lowenstein Fellow in International Human Rights with the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School. While at Yale she co-supervised the law school’s human rights clinic, coordinated events sponsored by the Schell Center, and taught International Human Rights at Yale College.

Before entering academia, Hurwitz served as a legal counselor with the Washington Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. She spent 1997-99 in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where she was director of Global Rights’ (then the International Human Rights Law Group) Bosnia program for 14 months. Before joining the Law Group, Hurwitz served as OSCE liaison officer to the Human Rights Coordination Centre of the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In 1997, Hurwitz worked in Ramallah (Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territory) with the Centre for International Human Rights Enforcement, as executive administrator for a project involving human rights enforcement under a European Union-Israel trade agreement. She has also been a consultant with the Women’s Division of Human Rights Watch, investigating violations of women’s rights under Morocco’s Family Code. Before attending law school at Northeastern University, she worked more than 10 years for the California-based Resource Center for Nonviolence, where she was involved in capacity building and training with nongovernmental organizations in the United States and the Middle East. Between 1981 and 1993, she led regular delegations of U.S. citizens on study tours of the Middle East, and spent a sabbatical year (1989-90) in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories directing Middle East Witness.

More recently, she has worked in Afghanistan and Lebanon on clinical legal education, and in Suriname on the rights of indigenous peoples to education and non-discrimination. She also has an interest in the practical aspects of modern Islamic law.
Hurwitz is admitted to the bars of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Engaging Law School Students Through Human Rights Clinics: A Perspective From the United States,” 11 Aus. J. Hum. Rts. 2 (2006).

"The Politics of the People, Human Rights, and What Is Hidden from View," 37 Geo. Wash. Intl L. Rev. 293 (2005), reviewing Balakrishnan Rajagopal, International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements, and Third World Resistance (Cambridge U. Press, 2003).HeinOnline (PDF)

Reports:
Women’s Human Rights in Bosnia & Herzegovina (with the International Human Rights Law Group, May 1999).
Perpetual Minors: Denying Women’s Rights in the Family in Morocco (initial field research and unpublished draft, for Human Rights Watch Women’s Division, 1996).

Brief of Amici Curiae REDRESS and the International Commission of Jurists, in support of Plaintiffs-Appellants, Mohamed et al v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Case No. 5:07-CV-02798-JW (July 10, 2008) (co-counsel on the brief)

Brief of United States Member of Congress and Law Professors as Amici Curiae in support of Plaintiffs-Appellants, Yousef et al v. Samantar, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Case No. 07-1893 (December 7, 2007), counsel of record to amici (on the brief: Germaine S. Dunn, UVA ’09 and Kerry M. Shapleigh UVA ’09)

Brief of Amici Curiae International Law, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, and Immigration Law Professors in support of Petitioner, Dalegrand v. Mukasey, to the U.S. Court Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Case Nos. 06-4766 & 07-2800 (November 21, 2007), co-counsel for amici with Stephen F. Smith (on the brief: Aaron Esty UVA ’09 and Zachary Williams UVA ’10).

Brief of Amici Curiae International Human Rights Organizations, in support of Respondent, Alvarez-Machain, et al to the U.S. Supreme Court (On Writ of Certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, No. 03-339, February 2004) (with UVA International Human Rights Clinic)